Good for Whom? Olmsted, Parks, and Public Good
Adding Contexts of Settler Colonialism and Systemic Racism
Before Central Park There Was Seneca Village
Seneca Village was a thriving African American and immigrant community (c.1825-1855) that was destroyed to make space for Central Park's creation.
Critical Inquiry: What have you previously heard or learned about Seneca Village and historical affluent Black communities in the United States? What does their destruction tell us about who parks and other "public good" projects and institutions were intended for?
How can digital scholarship projects help us understand what life in Seneca Village was like? What projects did you find illuminating?
Different groups have worked on honoring Seneca Village and preserving its legacy. If you were a designer for Central Park, how would you propose preserving Seneca Village's history?
Mapping the African American Past is a work of digital scholarship produced by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) in partnership with Columbia University's Teachers College and Creative Curriculum Initiatives (CCI). Their entry on Seneca Village includes videos with Public Historian Cynthia Copeland, images, and maps.
In 2020, The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission created this storymap, which includes information about Seneca Village.
The Seneca Village Project is dedicated to the study of a 19th-century African-American and Irish-immigrant community that was located in today's Central Park in New York City. The goal of the project is to conduct further research on the site and to commemorate it in an educational context. The Seneca Village Project includes several integrated components: archaeological and archival research and education.
Central Park Conservancy offers digital downloads of the Seneca Village outdoor exhibit, videos with historians, scholars, and descendants of Seneca Village residents, and a research guide.
Authors: Roy Rosenzweig; Elizabeth Blackmar
This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people--the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation; the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it; and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to life larger issues about the meaning of the word "public" in a democratic society.
Pop Culture Confronts the Past
Lizzo performed in Central Park at Global Citizen Live 2021. During her performance, she acknowledged Seneca Village, which was demolished to create Central Park.
Video Transcript: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to give back. I have to shout out that the land we're standing on is Seneca Village. Before it was Central Park it was Seneca Village. And if you don't know what it is, that was an affluent African American community that lived here in the early 1900's, and they were evicted and bulldozed so they could build this park. As we talk about climate change and making the world a better place and solving homelessness, we also have to talk about the institutionalized racism that happens in this country all the time. And if we don't talk about our history constructively, how can we build a better future?
Continue the Conversation
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If questions about digital scholarship, curation, social justice and sustainability align with your research interests, we'd love to connect. Email us at gr-dswp@wpi.edu.